Tea Party Titan Fading, Earmarks Might Not Be So Bad After All and More in Capital Eye Opener: September 29

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

RAND PAUL’S LEAD SHRINKING DESPITE TEA PARTY BACKING: The winning power of the Tea Party could be seriously tested in Kentucky, where Sarah Palin-endorsed Rand Paul‘s lead has slipped in the final stretch before election day. The race, according to the poll, is a statistical dead heat.

Paul, son of libertarian-leaning former presidential hopeful and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), has been praised by Tea Party activists for his advocacy of small government and pro-business legislation, gaining notoriety for defeating GOP establishment candidate and Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson in a party primary.

Paul’s opponent for U.S. Senate, Democrat Jack Conway, has slightly out-raised Paul, $3.7 million to $3.5 million, during the 2010 election cycle. However, as of June 30, the date of the most recent available filings, Conway also retained the edge in cash on hand with $703,012 while Paul was down to only $319,128.

Both candidates have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from ideological or single-issue groups, and Paul has also drawn heavily on out-of-state contributors, bringing in 69 percent of reportable campaign donations from outside Kentucky.

COULD EARMARKS ACTUALLY BE GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY? It’s been a bad PR year for earmarks. Politicians from President Obama to Sen. John McCain have slammed pork-ridden legislation as wasteful and irresponsible.But a new book challenges the conventional wisdom on earmarks, suggesting that the federal funds designated by politicians for specific use (and often funneled to a politician’s hometown to increase re-election odds) might actually be good for American democracy.

The book’s authors, two California State University–Channel Islands professors, assert that while earmarks are often attacked in political discourse, they actually play a relatively minor role in overall spending.

“We do not claim that all earmarks are wise uses of government dollars, nor do we assert that the earmark process is completely free of corruption,” the authors write. “However, on balance we believe that the current earmark process plays a useful role in the American system of government.”

Click below to watch one of the authors discuss the book on PBS NewsHour.

ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE GROUP SUES FOR LESS DISCLOSURE: The National Organization for Marriage wants to run political ads but doesn’t want to play by political disclosure rules. So the group has decided to challenge the rules.

NOM, a Christian organization aiming “to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it,” wants to run political advertisements in the Rhode Island governor’s race and other political contests this fall but doesn’t want the public to know which ads the group is paying for. The organization filed suit in a U.S. District Court in Providence this week, contending that NOM should not have to follow the state’s political action committee disclosure laws since the group is neither run by a political candidate nor exclusively active in Rhode Island.

NOM has filed similar suits in other states, a spokesman for the Rhode Island attorney general’s office said. However, after recent Supreme Court rulings allowed unlimited spending for political donors on first amendment grounds, the group may be emboldened in its newest suit.

A 2009 article on OpenSecrets Blog reported that NOM was the top proponent of an effort to repeal same-sex marriage in Maine, spending $1.6 million on the campaign.

A Rhode Island judge is expected to review the case Thursday.

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